Marie Tharp (1920 - 2006)

When Marie Tharp was born, plate tectonics was considered a crazy theory, but she proved the doubters wrong. The US mapmaker who famously created the first scientific maps of the ocean floor had a Master’s degree in geology and a second degree in math, but for the first 18 years of her partnership with Bruce Heezen to chart the ocean floor, she was restricted to drawing maps since women were not permitted on the ocean-going ships that collected data.

She also independently drew from other information sources to create accurate charts — charts that revealed the existence of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, clear evidence of plate tectonics and continental drift.

Tharp’s maps caused heated debate, but Tharp just kept on working: “There’s truth to the old cliché that a picture is worth a thousand words and that seeing is believing,” she wrote. “I was so busy making maps I [just] let them argue.”

Known for
Seafloor topography

Accurate charts showing the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, clear evidence of plate tectonics and continental drift

Find more
{| style="font-style:inherit;font-weight:inherit;" Soundings: The Story of the Remarkable Woman Who Mapped the Ocean Floor
 * Solving The Puzzle Under The Sea: Marie Tharp Maps the Ocean Floor
 * Trailblazers: 33 Women in Science Who Changed the World
 * Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science – And The World
 * Trailblazers: 33 Women in Science Who Changed the World
 * Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science – And The World
 * Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science – And The World
 * Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science – And The World

Works based on
Marie Tharp appears in The Lost Worlds of Planet Earth, the ninth episode of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey in animation form. The episode depicts her discovery of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and subsequently later in the episode she is described not only as an influential scientist who happens to be a woman but also as one who should be recognized as a scientist who overcame sexism to contribute to her field.
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